Day: June 30, 2018

The majority of the following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, June 29th 2018. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

SL Viewer

No changes to see out the week, leaving the current pipelines as:

Current Release version 5.1.6.516459 and dated June 15th, promoted June 21st – formerly the Pálinka Maintenance Release Candidate – New

Release channel cohorts:

Quinquina Maintenance RC viewer, version 5.1.7.516813, released on June 22nd.

Week #27 Deployments

[2:53-3:29] Animesh is now on all the major release candidate server channels. However, due to the US 4th July holiday occurring mid-week in week #27 (commencing Monday, July 2nd, 2018), it will not be deployed to the Main (SLS) channel, as the Lab wish to avoid “high risk” deployments during the week.

Bugsplat Testing

[3:34-4:08] The Lab is about to start experimenting with viewer crash reporting using BugSplat, a commercial service.

As a part of this, a new release candidate viewer with code for using Bugsplat should be arriving in week #28 (commencing Monday, July 9th); aside from this, code, it will be functionally identical to the de facto release viewer. It will be used to evaluate whether or not to commit to a move to using Bugsplat over the current home-grown Breakpad crash reporting mechanism.

Environment Enhancement Project

[4:40-5:50] The EEP project viewer is seen as being “not too far away”. It is currently awaiting the deployment of the back-end inventory management changes, which are required to support the new EEP inventory assets. This includes a new inventory Settings folder, designed to contain windlight assets. Please refer to my week #26 CCUG update for more on EEP as well.

[6:13-8:04] It’s not clear when the experience-based LSL support for EEP will be available – probably not during the initial deployment, but will become available as the project iterates. Also things will be set such that during testing, those on regions supporting the new EEP settings will see them; those on regions without the back-end support will see things as they are now (the “old style settings”).

[15:03-16:50] Also coming up is the new land auction system, which will allow users to auction their own Mainland.

The system is currently in the final stages of testing internally, and the current plan is for the Lab to wind-down auctions using the existing system by the end of week #27, then switch to the new system. Initially, only auctions of Linden held land will be available through the new system, but this will be expanded to include land held by users hopefully by the end of July 2018.

The new land auction system will be run through Place Pages, so those having Mainland they want to auction should consider creating a Place Page for it (if they haven’t already done so).

Other Items

[8:20-8:46] It appears that once Animesh, EEP, Bakes on Mesh, etc., are all deployed, the focus may be more on server-side updates and work (region crossings?). The easing of viewer-related projects should give TPVs some room to catch up with the Lab, if necessary, although bug fixes, etc., will still be appearing (via Maintenance RC releases).

[29:11-29:43] One of these projects will be ARCTan, the project to re-evaluate object and avatar rendering costs. However, this will remain a deliberately slow process.

[8:59-9:23] There are still two major open-source contributions to the viewer in development:

Camera presets, which will allow users to set and save their own preferred camera presets in the viewer see STORM-2145.

Porting of the poser feature from the Black Dragon TPV to the official viewer.

[9:32-12:40] As noted in my previous TPVD meeting summary, there are concerns about unintended consequences of experiences when combined with tools such as avSitter (and / or RLV), and the potential for abuse. A JIRA was raised, but subsequently closed by the Lab. However, the matter is still under discussion internally, and may result in changes to how experiences work to address the issue.

The next get-together of everyone at the Lab who works on Second Life to discuss plans and options should be taking place towards the end of July.

[18:16-18:37]The latest official viewer sees the minimum object LOD raised from 0.0 to 1.0; this is unlikely to be reversed.

[19:00-20:05] The Lab currently has an update to Voice running internally. Vivox are due to deliver a new SLVoice.exe update “real soon”. When this happens, the test Voice viewer will likely move to a public project viewer, with the new SLVoice package.

Like this:

One of the places I’d always enjoyed visiting in Second Life – although I admit it’s been getting on for 4 years since I was last there – is the paired regions of Chouchou, Chouchou V. These form the in-world base for the musical pairing of Japanese pianist arabesque Choche and vocalist Juliet Heberle, together also known and Chouchou. Over the years they gained a strong following in-world and have produced a number of CDs of their musical and original compositions, with samples and tracks showcased through their YouTube channel.

I first blogged about Chouchou – the region – far back in 2012, and it is both surprising and gratifying as to how little has changed over the years. The ground level setting, with its sand banks, shallow waters and teleport ladder rising into the sky remains always as it was, offering a haven of peace presided over by the duet’s music (do have the music stream enabled when visiting).

The teleport ladder provides access to two areas in the sky (both of which can also be reached via direct teleport as weell – SLurls at the end of this article): Islamey and Memento Mori (a third area, Babel, sadly seems to have sadly disappeared at some point in the past).

Islamey offers something of a traditional Japanese garden look, with teahouse built over water and walks under cherry blossoms, all sitting beneath a bright blue sky. This was once the venue for concerts – but to be honest, I’m not sure if this is still the case. But even if not, as I noted far back in 2012, it is a place of quiet contemplation where you can come when you want to give free passage to thoughts and ideas, or when you simply want to find peace and let Chouchou’s music soothe you gently.

Memento Mori is a place that used to draw me a lot because it is a magnificent build styled after the great medieval cathedrals, and that simply must be seen to be appreciated. It may appear to be a startlingly bright environment when first arriving, but it is well worth leaving the default windlight set while climbing the stairs from the arrival point up into the cathedral’s great nave; the way the jet black piano is revealed through the surrounding light is almost transcendental in feeling and perfectly suited to the setting.

The intricacy of this build – a joint work dating from 2010 by Juliet collaborating with Miya Grut and with the support of Yuki Aabye for some to the sculpt work – is completely mind-blowing: From the sheer size of the cathedral, through the curling stairways leading to the upper passages, the great bell suspended over the piano as it sits within the space below the great tower to the ghostly pews between the nave and the two outer aisles, the beauty here tends to leave the visitor in awe. It is genuinely a place that has to be visited and seen, rather than written about and photographed.

I was actually drawn back to Chouchou for two reasons. Firstly, to witness Memento Mori once more, simply because it has been so long since my last visit. Secondly, and, more particularly, because reader Silvana Silk e-mailed me with a link to a recent video on Chouchou’s YouTube channel announcing a new set of concerts by arabesque Choche.

A noted and respected classical pianist going by the name of Michal Horák in the physical world, he will – for the first time – be giving a series of concerts in Japan under both his physical world name and his Second Life avatar name. As the notice with the video states:

Up until now, arabesque has been working not only as a composer and a pianist of Chouchou, but also as a classical pianist under his real name Michal Horák. And this fall, for the first time the two names will be combined together. He will have the first piano concert under two names with this title “Michal Horák/arabesque Choche Piano Concert.” The concerts will be held in Tokyo, Osaka and Kagoshima, and Chouchou’s new and second piano album “piano02 opus” expected to be released on December, 2018 will be on presale at the concert venues.

Tickets for the concerts are on sale, and there are links in the video description (in Japanese) to the concert venues – I only with I was in a position to attend one of them. As I’m not, and to mark the occasion in my own small way, I’ve put together a video of Memento Mori. I hope you’ll enjoy it and use it as a reason to visit / return to Chouchou.

THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT May 26, 06:00 PDT - May 28, 06:00 PDTMay 23, 15:02 PDTScheduled - In observance of Memorial Day - Premium, Concierge, and Billing live chat and phone support will be closed on Sunday, May 26, 2018. Ticket submissions will remain open. All support channels will re-open Tuesday, May 29, 2018 at 6 AM, PDT.

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